Contents
Shadow Users With Citrix Director
Configure IE and Windows Setting to work with Director
Active Directory and Citrix Server
One of the best features in Citrix XenApp 7.6 and above is the ability to shadow users session From Director, use the shadow user feature to chat with user, view, full control of the user session and machine by working directly on a user's virtual machine or session. The user must be connected to the machine that you want to shadow.
Also the Citrix Director is a web base application that can run from any machines internally or externally if it was published over the internet. This is can run from a server or from Windows 10 HVD or a physical computer as long as you have Remote Desktop Assistance installed.
NOTE: Remote windows desktop assistance is installed by default on the Citrix HVD through the VDA agent and Windows 10. It is also installed on the director. If you want to connect from any other servers, you will need to install remote assistance feature which is part of server manger
This guide will take you through the steps to configure the local server or windows 10 machine to work with Citrix Director. This is for demo real time environment, we will use GPO for this deployment.
This section will cover all the necessary steps to allow admin or support users to shadow users sessions and it does break into server side and client side:
NOTE:
Create two OUs in Active Director for Computers and move the servers into the OUs
Create a default group policy under the main OU
The setting of the policy as below:
Under Configure Offer Remote Assistance setting, you can add as many groups as needed that will require remote access to support the end users.
Windows Server Configuration:
You will need to add Windows remote assistance from the server manager as per the screenshot below
You will need to add the Director URL to the trusted site, You can do this using IE setting or GPO. Please Open IE, Click on the gear icon and Setting
Click on Security Trusted Sites Sites Enter the URL and Save
One it is completed, you are now ready to remote control users session. Open your bowser and enter the Director server URL. I.e. http://servername/director
http://dinc99.dincloud.com/director
Enter your username, password and domain and hit login
Once you logged in, Click on filter on the top of the screen or sessions
Now you should be able to see the active session also a filter by is available if you have 100s of active session
Click on the associated user in question to drill down into his session
NOTE: In this screen you will see all active application and process, you have the ability to terminate any application or process with an option to log the user off
Click on Shadow on the left hand side
It will download the remote assist file, Click open
Users will be prompt for connection, please ask the user to click yes
Once you connected you can request control and the user will be prompt to accept as per the screenshot below
Instruct the user to click Yes and you will have a full control.
You can also chat with the user